What’s For Dinner?

It’s the wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday! I have successfully completed yet another year of getting out of cooking the meal! I call it the best “scam” I ever pulled! 44 years and counting, I have brought “appetizers and drinks” to any and all family gatherings every single year. Pathetic, I know…but I have yet to make a turkey with all its trimmings. I joke about this “annual freebie” all the time and am truly okay with the fact that I am and always will be…. A Thanksgivingmoocher. I don’t really have to work very hard to find the home with the meal prepared…my sister does it every year and my Mother in law is quite the cook! This opportunity to feast on other’s food is quite easy to acquire! And although it’s quite embarrassing and humiliating to share this piece of evidence in the case of the loafing guest, I must confess that I enjoy nothing more than eating other people’s food. Do I feel guilty feeding off these lovely and generous souls? A little. But, I have both accepted and succumbed to the realization that I am not, nor will I ever be…

A good cook.

I do not enjoy cooking at all. I have about a dozen or so recipes I am good at preparing, and probably all I will ever be good at. I may find a stray easy recipe here and there that works, but I have slowed down the search. I have pathetically yet assuredly decided that with my husband’s strict diet and my picky little eaters, I will not feel the pressure to cook “mini-feasts” on a regular basis in my home. I have lamented and sweated over recipes gone bad. I have spent hours looking through recipe books searching for the one with the least ingredients. I get overwhelmed at measuring, mixing and cooking many things at once. I truly have a dis-ability, when it comes to the kitchen.

Some if not most women just love to find recipes and spend hours in the kitchen producing a delectable and delightful array of eateries. You can find me at the nearest Little Caesars picking up the five-dollar pizzas. I don’t have that sophisticated palate, nor do I care to develop one. We are the home of peanut butter and jelly, tacos, and frozen pizzas.

Recently, I have had the greatest pleasure in buying these “Dream Dinners” that are already made for you and all you have to do is cook or fry them up! Funny story about them though…

I showed up the first time to pick up my new order I delightfully picked out on line, realizing that this just may be the ticket to a variety of lovely meals for my family. The day I was to pick all these goodies up, I informed my husband that we will be eating a lovely meal soon! I told him to wait and I would be home with a fun dinner to whip up in no time! With excitement, I scurry to the store with a box to fill the frozen custom made dinners in. I enter and the woman says, “go ahead and put that apron on and we will get started”.

“Mama say what????”

In a panic to retreat, I looked bewildered at her and mumbled, “I’m sorry, but I am here to pick up my food order, not make it.”

“Well, here at dream dinners, you actually put your recipes together here and take them home to freeze. That way, you can make them to your tasting. So here are all the color codes and charts and listings of all your ingredients and each station has each recipe with all your spices and sauces etc. You just follow all the charts and you’ll make your dinners to take home. Go ahead and get started!”

“Mama say what???”

I then explained that the only reason I even ordered these meals was to escape the very thing I was going to be doing now. I confessed that I am illiterate in reading recipes and have no clue what to do in each of these stations. She was kind and patient, yet I saw the tiny horror in her eyes she tried to hide as she constantly stopped me with a “oh no you don’t measure the chili with this! You just doubled the serving. That would ruin the recipe.” I raised my hand too many times to confess I had no clue what I was doing, and she found herself just staying with me as I clearly showed both stress and confusion with this entire maze of meal making hell. There was another woman doing each station with ease and quiet content. She probably loved picking her spices and adding this and that, all the while scooping and mixing ingredients to her liking. I could see why people would love to have it all out and color coded and prepared for you to create your masterpiece. But…

I can’t do that.

Two hours later, (long after the other woman) I walked out of the store exhausted and defeated carrying my box of newly made “dreamy damn dinners” for my family. I had left my phone in the car, thinking of course that I would only be a minute picking up the food. My poor husband called three times looking for me, as my family’s hunger grew and they wondered where I was. I called him back and said,

“I am picking up little Caesar’s ”

I was done with cooking that night. Luckily, I found the “made for you” program and signed on before I even left the building.